Rachel Goswell, one of Slowdive’s two singers, has cool hair. It is dyed half black and half white, and by the end of this show I had a feeling it might have been trying to tell us something. Slowdive broke up in 1995 having made three albums. They reunited in 2014 and have since made two more. Can we spot the join tonight between the two eras? I think we can.

When they first arrived on an independent music scene still subordinate to the critical whims of Melody Maker and NME, Slowdive were not exactly beloved. Back in the early 1990s they were more or less the whipping boys and girls of what was known as ‘shoegaze’. Woozy and dream-like, the ethereal vocals backed by a gauzy swoon of treated guitars, the aura of somewhat fey ennui and a diffident stage demeanour didn’t necessarily endear them to battle-hardened music scribes as the more exuberant Britpop hordes barrelled into view. Hence, ‘shoegazing’, a term of dismissive disdain for middle-class mopers such as Slowdive. They hailed from Reading. Case closed.

Back in the 1990s, Slowdive were the whipping boys and girls of what was known as ‘shoegaze’

Time has turned much of that on its head. Slowdive’s second album, Souvlaki, received with shrugged indifference at the time of its release, is now highly regarded; they play half of it at the show. Back then, Slowdive seemed derivative of several bands. Now, many younger artists reference them as influences. As for gazing at one’s shoes – they are still not, perhaps, the most dynamic bunch in the world, but there is a kind of theatre to their stage presence. With her armfuls of bangles, blissed-out beam and swaying dance moves, Goswell comes over as the shoegazers’ Stevie Nicks. Co-vocalist, guitarist and chief songwriter Neil Halstead – wearing a big ol’ baseball hat, cream suit jacket and an enviable moustache – could be auditioning for a 1970s trucker band.

Their vocal blend remains unique, the high and low frequencies becoming one before dissolving into the mesh-like sound. And their music is more eclectic than any label might allow, an often beautiful blur of possibilities which roam from corrupted 1960s pop and the gothic balladry of ‘Dagger’ to electronica and even ambient minimalism.

The evening is an even split between the old and the new, and that goes for the crowd as well as the material: middle-aged (mostly) blokes sharing elbow room – it is uncomfortably packed in here – with younger fans of both sexes. The set includes five songs from Souvlaki and four from Slowdive’s most recent record, Everything is Alive.

The newer material is glacial, atmospheric and heavy on keyboards, played by Goswell. Pleasant but oddly lacking in drama, invoking a zonked-out New Order. The drums sound so crisp and modulated they might be coming from a drum machine, yet there is definitely a human on stage playing them. The funereal almost-pop of ‘Kisses’ is reminiscent of the Cure circa Faith. During ‘Sugar For the Pill’ I write ‘claustrophobic’ in my notes. It feels like the room is a too small for this music, the sound denied the requisite space to blossom.

So much for the black. What of the white? When Goswell straps on an electric guitar, raising the number of guitarists in the band to three, it signifies time travel. As Slowdive revisit the early days, the energy levels rise. ‘Catch the Breeze’ adds grit and grain against big pulsing lights. ‘Souvlaki Space Station’ is indebted to the Cocteau Twins, as so many bands were in the 1990s, while ‘Alison’, ‘When the Sun Hits’ and ‘40 Days’ exemplify what Slowdive do best, then and now: twisted, fuzzy, psychedelic pop.

Talking of things going pop, earlier in the month Hamish Hawk’s sold-out show at the Barrowland Ballroom went off like a big bottle of fizz being uncorked, a symbolic celebration after several years of dues-paying at smaller venues.

If you drew a Venn diagram for Hawk’s voice, it would sit at the centre of circles named Morrissey, Scott Walker and Jarvis Cocker. You get the gist: the aural equivalent of a raised eyebrow. Yet there’s nothing arch or coy about this live show. Playing material mostly taken from Hawk’s two most recent records, Heavy Elevator and Angel Numbers, these very consciously literate songs pack a visceral punch thanks to a terrific band and Hawk’s gung-ho physicality, which manages to be both amusing and vaguely unsettling all at once.

The set builds to a peak on the singalong ‘Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973’ followed by the tensile post-punk of ‘Caterpillar’. Both are greeted by a partisan crowd as standard. An encore of Pixies’ ‘Debaser’ is simply jubilant steam-letting. Hawk would make a great pop star. It makes you wish they would bring back Top of the Pops just so he could be on it.